Cornered
by LadySilver
Summary: Damon has a question to which he's not going to like the answer. One-Shot.


_A/N: This story was written as a gift for one of my oldest fandom friends, fikgirl, for fandom_stocking on LJ._

**Cornered**

by LadySilver

"You're not a witch," Damon said as he fell into step next to the woman. The sidewalk around them was packed with people out doing last minute shopping, and she was no different. Her arms were laden with bags and she had the distant, focused expression of a person working through a mental checklist. Sundown was coming on fast, lending an extra urgency to everyone's steps as they navigated along the busy street. Accompanying the efforts was the tinkling of street corner bell ringers and charity hawkers, and the fainter strains of Christmas carols playing from streetlamp mounted speakers.

Ami started out of her contemplation and cocked an eyebrow at the younger-looking man walking next to her. He was taller than she was, and he liked to crowd close, trying to intimidate her. The sleeve of his black leather jacket brushed against her woolen coat with each step. "Why would you think I am?" she asked, noncommittally, not really interested in the answer, but needing to say something. She didn't try to modulate her accent. That it didn't match his or most of the people talking and chatting around them only served to emphasize that she was out of place, and that was okay with her.

He already knew that she wasn't American and he somehow knew she had a secret, one he felt he had some entitlement to. He found her at odd times and places, once every few months or so, not as if he were searching for her, but as if it were inevitable that their paths had to cross. He was so persistent in his efforts to uncover her secrets. This annoyed her, especially today with so many other, more important, things on her mind, starting with the need to finish her Christmas shopping. At her dismissive question, Damon widened his blue eyes and pursued his lips as if in disbelief that she wouldn't give him a hint, anything to work with to solve the mystery that so ate at him.

His pupils dilated and she felt a pressure grow at the front of her head. She blinked, reinforced her own mental walls against what he was trying to do. He was so quick to try to force answers that he didn't always remember that this technique didn't work on her. Or maybe he hoped that if he kept trying it, eventually he'd catch her off-guard and succeed. "Tell me what you are," he demanded. "I have to know." His voice held an intensity that would have unnerved anyone else. Ami was not anyone else.

She let a small smile onto her lips and shook her head, the beads strung on the ends of her tight braids clinking together. Her refusal to answer exasperated him. His hands started to come up like he was going to grab her shoulders and shake her next. He had to force them back down. She could see the effort that restraint took, the effort not to give further into his impulses, pressed into the tight lines around his mouth. For someone so old, he acted so young, no different than one of her own children. She offered a helpless shrug, as if whether to answer his question or not wasn't really up to her, even though they both knew it was. "No, I don't think so," she replied, punctuating the comment with a quick raising of her eyebrows. She turned toward the glass doors of an upscale toy store. Speaking of children….

"You. Don't—?" he gritted out. His fists clenched. He really was surprisingly impatient, even considering how dedicated he was to finding her, to prying at her for answers, to plying her with theories.

She'd known what he was from the first moment he'd found her, of course. He carried the knowledge baldly and proudly at the front of his mind, and she'd had nearly twenty years to hone her mindreading skills. The most difficult part of reading the knowledge from him was pretending that she hadn't, letting him think that she knew no more than he had chosen to reveal. Unfortunately, she had been unable to prevent him from figuring out that she wasn't what she appeared either. He could sense it from her. Like a child with a wrapped present in front of him, he kept touching the idea, shaking it, and eyeing it, determined to correctly guess about what sat concealed.

Despite what he was and what he was willing to do, she wasn't afraid of him. No matter how fast he could move, she had advantages that were faster. And she couldn't let him find out. The Tomorrow People had developed an extended network of humans and other beings who knew about them, many in positions of political power, but that never erased the need to be cautious. Damon was exactly the kind of being who did _not_ need to know about a race of people who couldn't kill, who he would perceive as being unable to defend themselves. He would view them as nothing but easy prey. More so than he viewed regular humans, which really was a frightening thought. She had read from his own thoughts the disregard he held for human life, and it made her tremble deep in her soul from its utter alienness.

Ami pulled the doors of the shop open. A gust of warm, dry air buffeted out of the store, carrying with it scents of plastic and peppermint. She stepped into the warmth, Damon close at her heels.

"Don't you think this charade is getting old?" he wheedled. She could envision him behind her, head slightly tilted, eyes widened, as he tried to play the cute angle. He was blocking the door from closing, letting the frozen December breeze in with him. The contrast of temperatures forced a shiver through her body. She adjusted the bags on her arms, grateful for the thick coat to protect her from the string and taut plastic handles that otherwise would cut into her circulation. Her gaze automatically jumped to the registers where lines of impatient customers backed up into the aisles of the store. She sighed. As much as she wanted to shop here, she wasn't willing to put up with those lines, if for no other reason than Damon would insist on standing right next to her the whole time.

Ami turned to step back outside and ran right into Damon's chest. He was deliberately blocking her egress. She didn't have the patience for this. "Hasn't anyone ever told you not to ask questions as Christmas?" she fired back.

He smirked. "Christmas will be over soon enough."

She narrowed her brown eyes and concentrated, summoning the telekinetic power that had always been her hallmark. Without touching him or altering her position in any way, she shoved him back, out of the doorway. Damon stumbled backwards, his feet skidding on the icy cement. A look of affront and confusion spread across his face. He'd pushed her too far and now he got a taste of what that meant. "You're not my friend," she pointed out, giving him another mental shove.

"So I keep hearing," he replied, throwing his hands up defensively. As if that would block her efforts. His response sounded confused or… she wasn't sure exactly what that tone was. He _felt_ confused, like a person trapped in a conversation he had to keep suffering through without any understanding of how it kept happening to him. She'd have felt sorry for him if she didn't know exactly why he had such a hard time hanging on to friends.

With sudden clarity, she knew she would have to tell him _something_ if she wanted him to leave her alone. And right now, she wanted nothing more. She had people depending on her, and Damon and his questions only got in the way. Dangerously so. An idea came to her. "You want to know what I am so badly?" She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. The other shoppers streamed around the two of them as if the two were decorative fixtures and not two people having an argument in public.

Damon's smirk returned, widened as if he thought he'd won. He crossed his arms over is chest, his poise recovered so quickly that she suspected that he'd already forgotten that he lost it.

Over the speakers, the carols switched from melancholy to upbeat, though the details of the melody were obscured by the crunching footsteps and hurried conversations of the crowds. The breeze blew cold against her cheeks and made the tip of her nose tingle.

Ami geared up for another telekinetic push, just in case she needed it, while hoping she didn't. All she had to do to get away from him was to duck for a second into the nearest alley or doorway. Teleportation was handy for quick exits. But, she wanted to end this relationship, such that it was, not just put it off until the next time he managed to find her.

"What I am, you're never going to have a chance to understand. Not unless you change in important ways." She spoke the words slowly, deliberately. She didn't want to tell him outright that she knew all _his_ secrets, but he needed to know that she knew more than he thought she did. A flicker of doubt appeared in his eyes at her words and she saw him lick his lips, a small gesture of discomfort.

She smiled, then. The expression was genuine, concerned. There was no need to bluff when she so clearly had the upper hand. "Do you really want to know?" she asked again. He nodded once, immediately. She regarded him for an indiscernible carol verse with thoughtful contemplation, not sure if he would understand what she was offering him, hoping he would. Despite everything, it was hard not to like him. Just a little. And it _was _Christmas. She thought about her children: the ones she'd born from her body who waited for her at home, and the ones who came to her when they broke out into being Tomorrow People. There weren't a lot of them yet, but every year brought more from the general population. Soon they would number in the hundreds, then the thousands. Ami met Damon's gaze and held it until he took one more step back on his own. At last she continued: "I'm the future."

No sooner had the words landed, then Ami turned and ducked back into the toy store. She headed straight to the back corner as quickly as she could navigate the bags through the crowded aisles. Instinctively, she knew that Damon wasn't following her. Yet. Her three words held him riveted as he tried to figure out what to do with them. That moment of confusion was enough. He would stand outside that store waiting for her to reemerge, not realizing until it was far too late that she had left via a different exit.

Damon had thought he wanted to know what she was. With any luck, her answer would satisfy him and make him lay off the questions and intimidation. With a little more luck, it would give him the ability to live long enough to find out what she meant.

END


End file.
